Heavy duty battery electric vehicles can require relatively frequent charging to operate in normal service. Frequent charging at predetermined charging station locations enables energy storage systems to be sized with more certainty leading to reduce size, mass, and cost of systems. That required frequency of charging means that manual connection, such as physically plugging the vehicle in, to a charger is not acceptable. Traditionally, manually connecting the vehicle requires the driver to park and then carry high voltage cables to plug in the vehicle. In a transit center distances to charging station equipment could be quite far from the bus leading to long lengths of heavy gage high voltage cable to reach the vehicle. Not only is this a distraction, it is not typical job task for drivers.
Therefore, a need exists for improved systems and methods for connecting an electric vehicle to a charging station. A further need exists for systems and methods that provide a control strategy for automatically providing such a connection and for subsequent charging of on-board vehicle batteries.